Andrew Stockdale (Cancelled)

Andrew Stockdale (Cancelled)

Andrew Stockdale returns to us with a surge of creativity in the shape of Keep Moving, his first self-produced studio album, under his own name.

Keep Moving is an honest exposé of Stockdale's poetic point of view within his day-to-day experiences and relationships with people. It's undoctored natural approach makes for a relieving listen in a hi-fi compressed supped-up pop-dominated landscape. Our culture is saturated with technology and sterile flawless lines, motion and sounds. Keep Moving is soulful and real, an organic wild rock record that doesn't drag or go stale, it keeps on moving. The tracks spur imagery of riding in vintage cars, hanging on street corners, relaxing at bbq's, dancing in malls, storytelling and daydreaming.

Stockdale spent the last three years writing in and out of studios and hotel rooms, recording with a variety of musicians and fine-tuning the record to a point where he felt he gelled with it. "I'm really happy with it," Stockdale says of the new album. "Totally, absolutely, I love it. I can live with it. I've listened to it 1,000 times."

After nearly a decade on the road with Wolfmother, Stockdale settled down in the lazy beach town of Byron Bay, on the far eastern coast of Australia, a place renowned for its surf and creative eccentrics and spiritual energies. He now works out of his 'shed', making jam videos for his fans and preparing for his live shows. The Shed Sessions (available on his YouTube Channel) are a warm invitation to view Stockdale and his band perform both acoustic and electric tracks off Keep Moving. The process introduced "a lot more spontaneity in the sessions," he notes. Of the "shed sessions," Stockdale explains, "what I've done is filmed it in the sanctuary of the band's recording space. You might see a dog, a surfboard against the wall. It's a bit more random and it gives the viewer the experience of what it's like to sit on a chair and watch while we play our songs."

Players and engineers involved in the making of this record featured musicians from the old Wolfmother camp as well as new artists and crew that Stockdale met along the way. Some of them include: Ian Peres (Bass, Keys); Vin Steele (Rhythm Guitar); Elliott Hammond (Wurly, Harp); Hamish Rosser (Drums); Will Rockwell-Scott (Drums) and Dave Atkins (Recording and Drums). Keep Moving was mixed by Vance Powell at Sputnik Sound in Nashville, and the album was mastered by Chris Athens Masters in Nashville.

Stockdale admits there was pressure to continue playing as Wolfmother, a name created with earlier collaborators. "It was a name, a brand everyone knows. But I don't feel comfortable playing as Wolfmother," Stockdale says. "When you write a song, what's on your mind comes out, what's in your heart and soul comes out. It's about your life experiences. I've been getting stuff off my chest, expressing ideas and experiences that are personal to me and I don't want to keep then applying that to the Wolfmother name. I had pressure on my shoulders."

Now there's a new pressure -- facing the music world as Andrew Stockdale. "It's a good pressure," Stockdale admits, "because it asks that question: is it any good? Do you like this music, do you like the film clips, the artwork. What's it about? I've put my heart and soul into it, and I believe in it."

For an artist with a Grammy Award, numerous ARIAs and a growing collection of platinum and gold certifications in the bag, Stockdale still has great expectations for his career. "My ambition," he says, "is just to go wherever people like it. I just go wherever I'm invited. Every year I get offers to play in Europe -- it just happens again and again. I've been basing my plans around that. If I get offers in America, I'll go there. That's how I've been living, that's how I've been planning my life. When we put out Cosmic Egg, Europe loved it. It went massive in Germany and throughout Europe. It went top 20 in the United States. We followed it. We followed the demand. We'll continue to do that."

The first single, "Long Way To Go," will be released as part of a 4-track EP entitled, Keep Moving (EP) out on April 26th.

Universal Music will assist with the album's international release. It will arrive first in Australia on June 7, and will be released June 10 in the United Kingdom and on June 11 in the United States.